One day in 1963, a dolphin named Elvar and a famous astronomer, Carl Sagan, were playing a little game. The astronomer was visiting an institute which was looking into the way dolphins communicate with each other. Sagan was standing on the edge of one of the tanks where several of these friendly, highly intelligent creatures were kept. Elvar had just swum up alongside him and had turned on his back.

The dolphin wanted Sagan to scratch his stomach again, as the astronomer had done twice before. Elvar looked up at Sagan, waiting. Then, after a minute or so, the dolphin leapt up through the water and made a sound just like the word “more”. The astonished astronomer went to the director of the institute and told him about the incident. ‘Oh, yes. That’s one of the words he knows,’ the director said, showing no surprise at all.

Dolphins have bigger brain in proportion to their body size than humans have, and it has been known for a long time that they can make a number of sounds. What is more, these sounds seem to have different functions, such as warning each other of danger. Sound travels much faster and much further in water than it does in air. That is why the parts of the brain that deal with sound are much better developed in dolphin than in humans. But can it be said that dolphins have a ‘language’, in the real sense of the word? Scientists don’t agree on this.

A language is not just a collection of sounds, or even words. A language has a structure and what we call a grammar. The structure and grammar of a language help to give it meaning. For example, the two questions “Who loves Mary?” and “Who does Mary love?” mean very different things. If you stop to think about it, you will see that this difference doesn’t come from the words in the question but from the difference in structure. That is why the question “Can dolphins speak?” can’t be answered until we find out if dolphins not only make sounds but also arrange them in a grammatical order which affects their meaning.

16 The astronomer was not interested in the way dolphins communicate with each other.

A Right B Wrong C Not mentioned

17 The dolphin leapt up into the air because Sagan was too near the water.

A Right B Wrong C Not mentioned

18 Parts of the dolphin’s brain are particularly well developed to handle different kinds of sound.

A Right B Wrong C Not mentioned

19 Dolphins are the most useful animals to humans.

A Right B Wrong C Not mentioned

20 Dolphins travel faster in water than any other animals.

A Right B Wrong C Not mentioned

21 Some scientists believe that dolphins have a language of their own.

A Right B Wrong C Not mentioned

22 Sounds can be called a language only when they have a structure and a grammar.

Nicola Walters has been taking part in experiments in Scotland to discover why humans gain and lost weight. Being locked in a small room called a ‘calorimeter’（热量测量室)is one way to find out.

1 The sighs above the two rooms read simply “Chamber One” and “Chamber Two”. These are the calorimeters: 4m by 2m white-walled rooms where human volunteers are locked up in the name of science. Outside these rooms another sign reads “Please do not enter- work in progress” and in front of the rooms advanced machinery registers every move the volunteers make. Each day, meals measured to the last gram are passed through a hole in the wall of the calorimeter to the resident volunteer.

2 Nicola Walters is one of twenty volunteers who, over the past eight months, have spent varying periods inside the calorimeter. Tall and slim, Nicola does not have a weight problem, but thought the strict diet might help with her training and fitness programme. A self-employed community dance worker, she was able to fit the experiment in around her work. She saw an advert for volunteers at her local gym and as she is interested in the whole area of diet and exercise, she thought she would help out.

3 The experiment on Nicola involved her spending one day on a fixed diet at home and the next in the room. This sequence was repeated four times over six weeks. She arrived at the calorimeter at 8:30 am on each of the four mornings and from then on everything she ate or drank was carefully measured. Her every move was noted too, her daily exercise routine timed to the last second. At regular intervals, after eating, she filled in forms about how hungry she felt and samples were taken for analysis.

4 The scientists help volunteers impose a kind of order on the long days they face in the room. “The first time, I only took one video and a book, but it was OK because I watched TV the rest of the time,” says Nicola. And twice a day she used the exercise bike. She pedaled () for half an hour, watched by researchers to make sure she didn’t go too fast.

5 It seems that some foods encourage you to eat more, while others satisfy you quickly. Volunteers are already showing that high-fat diets are less likely to make you feel full. Believing that they may now know what encourages people to overeat, the researchers are about to start testing a high-protein weight-loss diet. Volunteers are required and Nicola has signed up for further sessions.

British scientists are breeding a new generation of rice plants that will be able to grow in soil containing salt water. Their work may enable abandoned farms to become productive once more.

Tim Flowers and Tony Yeo, from Sussex University’s School of Biological Sciences, have spent several years researching how crops, such as rice, could be made to grow in water that has become salty.

The pair have recently begun a three-year programme, funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, to establish which genes enable some plants to survive salty conditions. The aim is to breed this capability into crops, starting with rice.

It is estimated that each year more than 100 hectares (公顷) of agricultural land are lost because salt gets into the soil and stunts (妨碍生长)plants. The problem is caused by several factors. In the tropics, mangroves (红树林) that create swamps (沼泽) and traditionally formed barriers to sea water have been cut down. In the Mediterranean, a series of droughts have caused the water table to drop, allowing sea water to seep (渗透) in. in Latin America, irrigation often causes problems when water is evaporated (蒸发) by the heat, leaving salt deposits behind.

Excess salt then enters the plants and prevents them functioning normally. Heavy concentrations of minerals in the plants stop them drawing up the water they need to survive.

To overcome these problems, Flowers and Yeo decided to breed rice plants that take in very little salt and store what they do absorb in cells that do not affect the plants’ growth. They have started to breed these characteristics into a new rice crop, but it will take about eight harvests before the resulting seeds are ready to be considered for commercial use.

Once the characteristics for surviving salty soil are known, Flowers and Yeo will try to breed the appropriate genes into all manners of crops and plants. Land that has been abandoned to nature will then be able to bloom again, providing much needed food in the poorer countries of the world.

31 Which of the following statements about Flowers and Yeo is true?

A They are students at Sussex University.

B They are rice breeders.

C They are husband and wife

D They are colleagues at an institution of higher learning.

32 Flowers and Yeo have started a programme

A to find ways to prevent water pollution.

B to identify genes that promote growth in salty soil.

C to breed rice plants that taste salty.

D to find ways to remove excessive salt from soil.

33 Which of the following is NOT mentioned as a cause of the problem discussed in the passage?

A Natural barriers to sea water have been destroyed.

B The water table has gone down after droughts.

C Sea level has been continuously rising.

D Evaporation of water leaves salt behind.

34 The word “affect” in Paragraph 6 could be best replaced by

A “influence”

B “effect”

C “stop”

D “present”

35 The attitude of the author towards the research project is

A positive

B negative.

C suspicious

D indifferent.

第二篇 Living with Computer

After too long on the Net, even a phone call can be a shock. My boyfriend’s Liverpudian accent suddenly becomes hard to understand after the clarity of his words on screen; a secretary’s tone seems more rejecting than I’d imagined it would be. Time itself becomes fluid – hours become minutes, and alternately seconds stretch into days. Weekends, once a highlight of my week, are now just two ordinary days.

For the last three years, since I stopped working as a producer for Charlie Rose, I have done much of my work as a tele-commuter (远程交谈者). I submit articles and edit them via E-mail and communicate with colleagues on Internet mailing lists. My boyfriends lives in England, so much of our relationship is computer-mediated.

If I desired, I could stay inside for weeks without wanting anything. I can order food, and manage my money, love and work. In fact, at times I have spent as long as three weeks alone at home, going out only to get mail and buy newspapers and groceries. I watched most of the blizzard (暴风雪)of ’96 on TV.

But after a while, life itself begins to feel unreal. I start to feel as though I’ve merged with my machines, taking data in, spitting them back out, just another node (节点) on the Net. Others on line report the same symptoms. We start to strongly dislike the outside forms of socializing. It’s like attending an A.A. meeting in a bar with everyone holding a half-sipped drink. We have become the Net opponents’ worst nightmare.

What first seemed like a luxury, crawling from bed to computer, not worrying about hair, and clothes and face, has become an avoidance, a lack of discipline. And once you start replacing real human contact with cyber-interaction (网上交流), coming back out of the cave can be quite difficult.

At times, I turn on the television and just leave it to chatter in the background, something that I’d never done previously. The voices of the programs soothe (安慰) me, but then I’m jarred (使感不快)by the commercials. I find myself sucked in by soap operas, or compulsively (强制性地) needing to keep up with the latest news and the weather. “Dateline,” “Frontline,” “Nightline,” CNN, every possible angle of every story over and over and over, even when they are of no possible use to me. Work movers from foreground to background.

36 Compared with the clear words of her boyfriend on screen, his accent is

A obscure.

B distinct.

C unreal.

D misleading.

37 The passage implies that the writer and her boyfriend live in

A England.

B different countries.

C the same city.

D the same country.

38 Living alone in a house, the writer seems to

A have totally forgotten her work.

B be afraid of her neighbors.

C get some comfort from TV programs.

D have gone crazy.

39 We learn from the passage that the writer

A is fed up with the Net opponents.

B prefers people to the computer.

C is addicted to the computer.

D does not like human contact.

40 The phrase “coming back out of the cave” in the fifth paragraph means

A “coming back home”.

B “giving up the present job”.

C “living a luxurious life”.

D “restoring real human contact”.

第三篇 The Body Clock

Why is it that flying to New York from London will leave you feeling less tired than flying to London from New York? The answer may be a clear case of biology not being able to keep up with technology.

Deep inside the brain there is a ‘clock’ that governs every aspect of the body’s functioning: sleep and wake cycles, levels of alertness, performance, mood, hormone levels, digestion, body temperature and so on. It regulates all of these functions on a 24-hour basis and is called the biological clock.

The body clock programmes us to be sleepy twice a day, between 3-5 am and again between 3-5 pm. Afternoon tea and nap are all cultural responses to our natural biological sleepiness in the afternoon.

One of the major causes of the travellers’ malady known as jet lag is the non-alignment of a person’s internal body clock with clocks in the external world. Crossing different time zones confuses the biological clock, which then has to adjust to the new time and patterns of light and activity. To make matters more complex, not all internal body functions adjust at the same rate. So your sleep/wake may adjust to a new time zone at one rate, while your temperature adjusts at a different pace. Your digestion may be on a different schedule altogether.

Though we live in a 24-hour day, the natural tendency of the body clock is to extend our day beyond 24 hours. It is contrary to our biological programming to ‘shrink’ our day.

That is why traveling in a westward direction is more body-clock friendly than flying east. NASA studies of long haul pilots showed that westward travel was associated with significantly better sleep quantity and quality than eastward flights.

When flying west, you are ‘extending your day, thus traveling in the natural direction of your internal clock. Flying eastward will involve ‘shrinking’ or reducing your day and is in direct opposition to your internal clock’s natural tendency.

One of the more common complaints of travelers is that their sleep becomes disrupted. There are many reasons for this: changing time zones and schedules, changing light and activity levels, trying to sleep when your body clock is programmed to be awake, disruption of the internal biological clock and working longer hours.

It is often suggested that you adjust your watch as soon as you board a plane, supposedly to try to help you adjust to your destination’s schedule as soon as you arrive. But it can take the body clock several days to several weeks to fully adjust to a new time zone.

So, our body clock truly can ‘govern’ us.

41 The role of the body clock is to

A enable us to sleep 6 hours a day.

B help us adapt to a 24-hour cycle.

C regulate the body’s functions.

D interfere with the body’s functions.

42 The word “malady” in Paragraph 4 is closest in meaning to

A “condition”.

B “discomfort”.

C “injury”.

D “excitement”.

43 Flying in a westward direction will

A help you sleep better.

B increase the degree of jet lag.

C shrink your day.

D make you overeat.

44 Which of the following in NOT mentioned as a reason for the disrupted sleep of travelers?

Acid rain (酸雨)is now a familiar problem in the industrialized countries in Europe. Harmful gases are produced by power stations and cars. They dissolve in rainwater and this makes acid rain, which damages trees, rivers and streams.

Acid rain is also capable of dissolving some rocks. And buildings made of soft rock, such as limestone (石灰石), are particularly badly affected. The acid rain attacks the rock, and so carvings and statues are eroded (受腐蚀) more quickly.

__________(46) According to a report in the New Scientist, acid rain is being blamed for the rapid decay of ancient ruins in Mexico. The old limestone buildings in places like Chichen Itza, Tulum and Palenque are wearing away very quickly indeed. These sites are the remains of the buildings built by the Mayas between 250 BC and AD900, and the spectacular ruins of Mayan civilization are visited by thousands of tourists every year.

But those ruins are in danger of being seriously damaged by pollution. At many sites the stone has been covered with a layer of black substance. ________________(47).

Scientists estimate that about one millimeter of stone is worn away every twelve years. ________________(48) The acid rain is said to be caused by pollution from oil wells in the Gulf of Mexico. Car exhaust gases are also a problem. Local volcanic eruptions make the problem even worse. Nevertheless, with enough money and effort, researchers say that many of the problems could be solved and the rate of erosion reduced. ____________ (49).

Mexico’s current lack of funds is also partly due to oil. The country has rich oil fields and a few years ago, when oil was expensive, Mexico was selling large quantities of oil to the USA and earning a lot of money. __________ (50) However, the price of oil then dropped, and Mexico has been left owing enormous sums of money and with not enough income from oil sales to pay back the loans. So unless the price of oil rises, it is unlikely that Mexico will be able to afford to clean up the pollution and save its Mayan ruins from destruction.

A At others the painted surfaces inside temples are lifting and flaking off () and the stone is being eaten away.

B That is enough to have caused some of the ancient carvings to become seriously damaged already.

C These measures would reduce the pollution, but would not stop it completely.

D The government was therefore able to borrow huge sums of money from banks around the world, thinking they would have no problem repaying their debts.

E The problem, however, is not just a European one.

F However, the Mexican government does not have enough money to do the work, and needs to spend what money it has on the Mexican people.

第6部分：完形填空 （第51—65题，每题1分，共15分）

阅读下面的短文，文中有15处空白，每处空白给出了4个选项，请根据短文的内容从4个选项中选择1个最佳答案，涂在答题卡相应的位置上。

Science and Truth

“FINAGLE”() is not a word that most people associate with science. One reason is that the image of the scientist is of one who always __________ (51) data in an impartial () search for truth. In any debate- ___________ (52)intelligence, schooling, energy – the phrase “science says” usually disarms opposition.

But scientists have long acknowledged the existence of a “finagle factor” – a tendency by many scientists to give a helpful change to the data to __________ (53) desired results. The latest of the finagle factor in action comes from Stephen Jay Gould, a Harvard biologist, who has ___________ (54) the important 19th century work of Dr. Samuel George Morton. Morton was famous in his time for analyzing the brain ____________ (55) of the skulls as a measure of intelligence. He concluded that whites had the largest brains, that the brains of Indians and blacks were smaller, and _______ (56), that whites constitute a superior race.

Gould went back to Morton’s original data and concluded that the ____________ (57) were an example of the finagle at work. He found that Morton’s “discovery” was made by leaving out embarrassing data, ___________ (58) incorrect procedures, and changing his criteria – again, always in favour of his argument. Morton has been thoroughly discredited by now and scientists do not believe that brain size reflects __________ (59).

But Gould went on to say Morton’s story is only an example of a common problem in ____________(60) work. Some of the leading figures in science are ________________ (61) to have used the finagle factor. Gould says that Isaac Newton fudged out () to support at least three central statements that he could not prove. And so _____________ (62)Laudius Ptolemy, the Greek astronomer, whose master work, Almagest, summed up the case for a solar system that had the earth as its center. Recent _____________ (63) indicate that Ptolemy either faked some key data or resorted heavily to the finagle factor.

All this is important because the finagle factor is still at work. For example, in the artificial sweetener controversy, for example, it is ________ (64) that all the studies sponsored by the sugar industry find that the artificial sweetener is unsafe, ________ (65) all the studies sponsored by the diet food industry find nothing wrong with it.